Hannah Smith, a 14-year-old girl, was teased and verbally abused on a popular social networking website. Anonymous people made fun of her weight and a family death online. That led Smith to commit suicide after being urged to drink bleach and cut herself.

Phoebe Prince, a 15-year-old Irish immigrant, was cyber-bullied just because of her date for a school dance. She was constantly bullied by her peers, being called horrific names on several popular social media sites. She hanged herself because of that. Even after she committed suicide, girls continued to leave vicious messages on the online page created in her memory.

Those are just two of the 4,400 deaths officials attribute to bullying and cyber-bullying in the U.S. every year. Children, teens — even adults — are bullied day after day.

There are around 12 suicides committed every day in the U.S because of bullying. Something needs to be done to put an end to these horrible occurrences.

Congress needs to create and enforce a law to stop cyber-bullying and bullying in general from happening.

People who don’t agree that bullying is such a big issue should look at the statistics and realize that it affects children all over the world. Something needs to be done.

Lily Russell

MacKenzie Rodrigue

Britney Wiers